The XX

I don't like it when female singers are marketed or presented (or received) as they are with this group. It just seems like there is a perpetual market for "inoffensive alterna-pop with female singer". It's like you are selling femininity as an ingredient. I think the female singer would be better off trying her hand at jazz or real singer-songwriter styles, clearly she has talent, the canned nature of the music and underwhelming songwriting don't do her justice.

x-post: cozen, what is your point? It is creepy you can't get over a post I made last night. You seem more interested in my opinions than in discussing the actual music.

I'm just interested in hearing about this rich seam of bands who are currently doing what the xx ('lazy singing and minimalism') are doing but are going unhyped

actually scratch tht I'm not even that interested

c u l8r xx

A woman's place is opening for Duffy. The indie scene is not befitting a true female sensibility.

This album was a huge grower for me. I think the melodies are really beautiful (esp. on the first half of the album) and would stand up in any kind of arrangements (and with any kind of singer, to be honest). I don't really hear almost any of the bands mentioned thus far (def. not Beat Happening at all outside of the superficial spareness; not really Interpol; I suppose Low, but the xx stuff is so much more torch-y).

prinzhorn dance school?

the xx are nothing like 'em.

i don't think they are either but they do sound like lazy singing and minimalism.

i like this record but i find it the opposite of a grower.

someone convince me that doing another lecture on what "minimalist" means in music is a bad idea

Maybe "grower" isn't the right term. I just thought it was terribly dull at first superficial glance, and then when I got a vague urge to put it on again I was suddenly completely overtaken by it.

Dan, I would welcome your lecture.

Because I'm a big fan of the Field and Pantha du Prince and can't stand all these indie-rock goons trampling all over the good name of their genre.

Basic Space has grown on me quite a lot, or at least, i love the Sampha mix (don't expect anything mindblowing, its just v nice)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvMlQz5IYYQ

I don't think the xx are particularly exciting, their appeal isn't excitement or novelty
me neither. but what is these days? so in relative terms their music is exciting.

opening myself up to my own pls name names here but: there's lots pf exciting music!

i'm perfectly aware of what minimalist means in music. the music is pretty minimal although if it sounds nothing like philip glass et al. you can use minimalism without referring to the minimalist movement. i was using the word because someone else already had (not that i think it's an inappropriate word).

this record sounded instantly wonderful and seductive and fully realised, to me. i just found that it didn't have much more to give me than it gave me on an initial listen. i'm still boggled by the sophistication and maturity of it considering the age of the band.

hey can 40+ year olds not complain about the sad state of music or whatever? nagl, thanks.

By "expensive", you ought to know what I mean, they sound like groomed talent, they do not sound spontaneous.

you must uh, not like pop music. this is such a dumb criticism

there's lots pf exciting music!
name just one name! i would love to be proven wrong!

the ubiquity of exciting music renders such a task meaningless!

kevin k this forum does not allow me to waste people's time by spending paragraphs refining my remarks. I personally don't take the word "groomed" in the same sense you did. They seem coached or manipulated. Their own marketing doesn't match the picture of the actual band that is posted upthread - they look like perfectly likable and ordinary college-type kids, but are packaged and presented and recorded in a way that does not convey that (cf. their own website). This is what I mean - I don't like the presentation. Clearly some people on this thread have had bad experiences with "hipsters" or "music connoisseurs", please take it up with the "indie hipsters" and record collectors who have offended you in the past instead of aggressively projecting opinions, attitudes and sentiments on someone who does not possess them. You are ascribing values to me that I do not have, I do not do the same with those I disagree with.

Back to the original subject - for historic context on similar issues WRT somnolescent-type music w. female vocals, you could try PORTISHEAD: classic or dud?!. I happen to have liked Portishead at the time, but I also think their marketing and their press made them fair game for a big fat "yawn".

If School of Seven Bells is opening for you, perhaps you think too highly of yourself. Or someone thinks too highly of you.

Who cares? They're bad because ... they're popular?

Genuinely sorry that marketing/image/press/etc. affects your ability to like music.

who gives a fuck about marketing or presentation?!?!???

Yeah that's not particularly fair since image/marketing turns people off to music all the time.

see also cockfarmer fanbases

Is this what I said? I don't think so. I didn't say this, go punch the person in the face who said this to you in whatever conversation you had elsewhere, I am not the one who said this.

I don't like popular music now. Creepy.

Should I get therapy now that sometimes stylistic packaging (which includes choice of talent and production) is off-putting?

x-post to jaymc and his "popularity" remark, not HI DERE.

looking forward to I Love Marketing board btw

Kind of lolling that people are getting this irate over The XX, who are kind of like mood stabilizers pressed onto a CD.

The X(ana)X

Is that evil corporate refined mood stabilisers or natural organic home grown mood stabilisers?

Is this what I said? I don't think so.

Sorry, I might have jumped to conclusions here. I thought you meant that you were put off by the fact that *anyone* was opening for them, like how dare they be smug enough to think they can headline a show. (Obviously, they are headlining shows because a lot of people like them.) I don't know anything about School of Seven Bells to get what their association with that band in particular means.

tbf SOSB supporting the xx does seem a bit weird/undeserving but obv a reflection of greater critical buzz towards the latter.

They seem coached or manipulated.

By whom, do you think?

Satan!

the ubiquity of exciting music renders such a task meaningless!
ok, in other words there is so much exciting music out there that the concept of exciting music is per se refuted. whatever time you take, most music is always dull as fuck, only a small, hard to find portion is exciting.

I sort of feel like people who think most music is "dull as fuck" don't actually like music all that much.

If you sell enough product, you deserve to headline, I suppose. I never accused them of being smug - this isn't a personal attack on the artists themselves. I just don't like seeing SOSB compared unfavorably to them, they sound nothing alike. The point of having them as an opening act is not to put SOSB down or mark them as "inferior", it is sad if people take them that way, as if we're talking about boxing matches not music.

I think there is an appropriate place for "dull as fuck" music, but I don't like Emusic or whoever telling me that as an electronic music consumer I have to get this XX record. It seems better suited to the general pop market.

wait, waht

u kno u don't have to do what emusic says

the xx don't seem to be selling much at all (probably a bit less than GAPDY in the UK). so much for "packaging".

All that coaching didn't pay off after all, you mean?

Kind of lolling that people are getting this irate over The XX, who are kind of like mood stabilizers pressed onto a CD.

― in the name of the purple and gold (HI DERE), Tuesday, January 26, 2010 9:50 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark

i'm only irate at ppl who don't understand the concept of discussing music on a music message board

they have sold one less album than the last Mastodon. what a blow for people who dress as if they chop wood and stalk deer on the regular.

The X(ana)X

i love the xx but am astonished that i've never seen this joke made before!

I've always thought The XX sounded massively amateur (while still being accomplished enough to be minimal); it's one of the things I'm NOT keen on about them.

not really - amateur-sounding bands tend to sound a bit ramshackle, a bit as if it's all guesswork; the xx sound like they know exactly what they're doing at every point, that they're executing a very specific aesthetic. one that you need to go halfway to meet them for, but still.

i don't think they sound amateur, just precise! not a wasted note.

curious why you think so, though, Nick. a lot of the press surrounded the record was all about how incredible it is that this isn't the bands' third record or whatever. i kind of agree.

*band's

The singing sometimes sounds amateur. The rest of it, not so much.

I know, I know, and I can totally understand that inference from the music; I just... to me it almost seemed as if they played so slow, and so economical, was because they were hesitant about what they were doing. I know this is counter-intuitive if you take the punk = playing-badly-fast idea, but that's just how I feel (felt) about them.